Too few take buyout offer from NYT

Today's NYP claims the raw number to be:

15

 

Seriously, waylon, do you think NYT readers are out there overanalyzing the job cuts and refusal to name names the way you are? Do you honestly believe the readers of your newspaper -- unless you work for the Times -- are even aware of the Times cuts, let alone looking at it the way you are?
And I say "us" because I do not believe what the NYT does in relation to cutting staff is any reflection on me or my newspaper -- even though we might be considered a fringe competitor of the Times.

 

My point is that we should always be as aggressive in covering the pitfalls of our own industry as we would be another. That is all. Not because readers might or might not be analyzing the coverage. But because it's the right thing to do.

 

But there probably are very good legal reasons why the Times can't announce names. And, again, do readers care about the names of 10 or 12 Times deskers who are being laid off? Are the names --- not recognizable in most cases -- really relevant to the reader?

 

I know. I said that all right up top. I get all that. On some level, it still bothers me.

 

Unless it's a writer or columnist who is well known, the reader doesn't care about names. Readers don't have a clue that Joe Copy Editor works there, or care that he's being laid off.

 

The Times was happy to let readers know reporters and columnists by name, via bylines, when they were employed there. That was part of their product, and the familiarity of a byline gave it credibility with readers, some semblance of the joint's institutional knowledge.

Now it doesn't want readers to know, in one fell swoop, who they're shedding. That's like McDonald's getting rid of the beef in their hamburgers but only wanting to admit that it is "altering ingredients."

If you're getting rid of beef, admit it.

Be honest and make known the names of the journalists whose bylines mattered when they were doing the Times' work, but who apparently don't matter now in the editors' patronizing of the audience.

 

So by the same logic, Joe, the Times should mention when writers/columnists leave for better gigs?
They should have run stories on Buster Olney, Selena Roberts et al going to the 'net?

 

Think there is a difference between people moving on to further careers, and management choosing to shed (or encouraging to leave) the people it recruited and was just offering up yesterday as "the product."

 

And unless those being shed are high profile columnists or writers, the reader still does not know nor care who they.
Becuase your byline is there 5 times a week doesnlt mean the readers are going to want to know what happened when that byline is no longer there. Most readers, in fact, don't even notice.

 

Times didn't seem to have a problem going publish when its Supreme Court reporter (name escapes me now -- proving your point, I guess, spnited!) left via buyout with $300K. Now that it is whacking folks, it "respects privacy."

 

WFW. They don't notice, and many of them probably don't give a shit.

Then they turn around and bitch about the the decline in quality of newspapers without realizing what led to that decline.